


Sandburg's Problem

by ksrandomme



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: First Time, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-20
Updated: 2008-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 03:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15355134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ksrandomme/pseuds/ksrandomme
Summary: Something has changed in Sandburg. Can Jim figure it out before he loses his friend forever?





	1. What happened to Sandburg?

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Elaine, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Artifact Storage Room 3](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Artifact_Storage_Room_3) and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Artifact Storage Room 3’s collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/artifactstorageroom3/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** This was written in a period of time when I was really really disgusted and pissed with my life. It just all came out in this story. Told from Jim's POV.

  
Author's notes: Jim misses Blair's hair...  


* * *

I think it was brown, with red and gold mixed in. Sounds about right. Cinnamon colored? Or maybe Honey? No, not honey… Mahogany. It was mahogany in color and felt like spun silk to my fingertips. God I miss his hair. It was long and curly and beautiful. He cut it to get comfortable in the academy and he’s not grown it back since. He said it was some rite of passage thing.  
  
  
I didn’t care.  
  
  
His eyes, now those stayed mostly the same. Indigo hued, wide and bright. His eyes were so expressive. Big and beautiful. Something in them always told me that he had the answers to all the fucking questions in the universe. But I’m speaking in the past tense. His eyes have become less expressive as of late. Less all knowing. More tired and hard. He said he was feeling his way and not to take his silence to heart.  
  
  
I couldn’t help it.  
  
  
His smile… no, I don’t want to go there. There is no smile anymore. It’s all hard lines and angles now. He doesn’t smile, hardly jokes. He’s always in the middle of some book on police procedure or journal. Checking up on the newest drugs, weapons or gangs on the street. He’s changed his research from understanding the normal person’s head to how to talk a jumper down from the 16th floor without going over the side.  
  
  
I don’t like it.  
  
  
He’s not ‘Chief’ anymore. His mannerisms have gone so far off into left field. He’s harsh at times when he’s not silent. Naomi doesn’t visit anymore. The last time, she left, muttering something about how she created the negative energy that was welling up inside him, but she didn’t know how to fix it.  
  
  
Neither did I…  
  
  
I still don’t.  
  
  
I miss my friend…  



	2. Some Sentinel...

  
Author's notes: Jim catches a hint of memory.  


* * *

He’s reading another book when I come home. It’s my turn to cook, but I’m late, so I stopped by his favorite place for dinner. Well, it used to be… I don’t know next to anything anymore. Now, more often I get some offhand remark about how he manages to cook when it’s HIS turn.  
  
  
Now I’m snipping… not good Ellison.  
  
  
I set the bags on the counter and toss a glance in his direction. He hasn’t looked up. I figure I can take a moment to just gaze at him a moment. He seems so still. I worry about him a bit when he is like this. He used to be so animated, hard to handle, so ‘in your face’. Now he barely acknowledges me when I bring him a plate of dinner. He’s reading at the table, flagrant violation of the house rules, but do I say anything? Hell no, he pays rent now and if I was to say anything, he would be so angry he’d start packing. And I know I can’t handle that right now.  
  
  
And here comes the panic.  
  
  
It’s not like I can’t live without him… no, that’s not right. I really can’t live without him. He is still my anchor in this world. I haven’t told him about the troubles I’m having. I haven’t confessed to the fact that I have been using my senses less and less. I am afraid that if I tell him he will shut down. I don’t know when it happened, when he stopped caring, when he became this… silence. It’s almost enough to make me want to scream.  
  
  
And then it hits me.  
  
  
I know when this started. It was soon after he came back from the academy. I had paperwork piling up from a case that he hadn’t been on, so I was late getting home. He beat me there, said something about doing laundry and making dinner. We had argued a bit about it, because it was my night to cook. But he assured me it was fine. So color me surprised when I got home that night and the house was practically empty. All the lights were off and the stove was cold. And there was my partner, curled up on the couch, shivering from cold and very, very silent. The balcony windows were open and the night air had chilled him to the bone, yet he never moved.  
  
  
I had tried to talk to him, ask him what was wrong. He appeared to wake up as if from a trance, blinked at me a couple of times, and then jumped to his feet, bounding around the kitchen, apologizing for losing track of the time. He was hiding something, but I couldn’t put a finger to it at the time. Now, as I sit on the couch after cleaning the kitchen, and after Blair has gone to bed in his little room under the stairs, I sift through my memories until I can find that night again. And I really LOOK at everything around me, and at him. I put all the training we’ve done over the years to every sense in the memory. And I find it.  
  
  
Tears…  
  
  
Well, hell… what do you think of that… I remember now that it’s the last time that I ever remember my partner crying.  
  
  
How could I have missed it?  



	3. Truth is stranger than fiction.

  
Author's notes: Jim recognizes the criminals.  


* * *

It was all I could do not to snatch him up into my arms and demand that he tell me about that night. That damn, fucked up night. I should have known… hell I KNEW something was wrong. I’m the fucking Sentinel of the fucking Great City, aren’t I? But I held my tongue. He was sleeping now and I would leave him there. He slept so little on so many nights. And there was yet another clue as to what screwed him up. Used to, give the man a flat surface and enough silence and he would be asleep in a matter of minutes. Sleeping the sleep of the just.  
  
  
But not anymore. Often times, I would wake up from his tossing and turning on the small bed that was in his room, his moans and cries more than sufficient to have me tumbling down the stairs at a near dead run, crashing to his side to pull him, bodily, into my embrace so that I could sooth him either fully awake or into a much more peaceful sleep. Now I sleep on the couch until his alarm goes off, then slip quietly into the bathroom as if I hadn’t just spent the entire night in my clothes from the day before. If he was going to have a nightmare, then I wanted to know about it first thing, not half an hour into it and half asleep trying to help.  
  
  
At first he hated me intruding in his privacy in that manner. Now he just accepts it, letting me sooth him and then pushing me off, mumbling something about going back to sleep. So I don’t know if he just feels bad about it or if he just doesn’t care anymore. I don’t know which thought I hate more. Both, I think.  
  
  
When I’m pretty sure that he is asleep for the first part of the night, I delve back into my memories, trying to sort out what happened that night from the clues left behind. As I seriously take stock of what was left behind, I notice that there was a LOT left that I had ignored before. The saline smell in the air that I could taste whenever I was close to him. The heat from his body as it rushed past mine. Not from anger, but more like… shame. The short, clipped answers to any of my questions. It felt like he was hiding something, but what I wasn’t sure.  
  
  
But there was more there. Lavender and Jasmine and something that smelled like Honeysuckle. Not anything that he wore. And it was very strong, like a woman’s perfume. Searching my memory, I can’t come up with a single person who ever wore that particular combination. I close my eyes and think back, remembering there being three glasses on the table that evening. Two had lipstick. That meant two visitors. Both women.  
  
  
I remember I had called him when it got too late, telling him not to wait for me. Thinking back, that should have been a BIG fucking clue that something was wrong. He nearly climbed out of his skin to make a dinner that he never ate, after I had called him to tell him not to worry about it. But in the background when I had called him, I remember there had been a knock on the door. And he had opened it before hanging up the phone, and I had heard the voices of two women talking to him.  
  
  
And I knew those voices… both of them…And my blood is running cold now, here in the present as I remember the voices from the past.  
  
  
Two women, both having been spurned by us. One he had dated several times before he tried to call it quits. And one… that I had been married to just long enough to be too long.  
  
  
“Oh fuck…”  
  
  



	4. With a little help from my friend...

  
Author's notes: Little help please, Megan?  


* * *

I was pissed. Beyond pissed. Way beyond.  
  
  
In only the few short months that Carolyn and I had been married, I knew she was capable of some insidious stuff. And after seeing the way Samantha was with Sandburg, I had a feeling that she was just as bad. But what the hell could the both of them have possibly said or done to my partner, my Guide for Christ’s sake, to make him slowly self-destruct? Whatever it was, may I please kill them for it now? I promise to do it with a smile.  
  
  
He was, quite literally, breaking down before my eyes. Turning from the young, vibrant man I knew into some one cold and unapproachable. And it’s not gone unnoticed, either. Simon and the others have noticed it happening, but I’m his partner, his roommate. I’m the one who’s supposed to be in the loop, so I’m the one reassuring everyone that it’s fine. Even though I need the reassurance more than they do.  
  
  
Megan seemed to be the only one who knew anything. And even her information was shaky at best. The only thing she had gotten from him was that something had happened. Both women had come to visit him, both had said something and both had left him feeling bereft. Lost in the turmoil of his own mind. But he wouldn’t tell Megan what it was. Which had left the Aussie just a little upset herself.  
  
  
She apologized, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. It wasn’t her fault any more than it had been any of the others. But she made me promise to let her help. How could I deny her?  
  
  
“He made me promise not to go running to you when it started, Jimbo. I’m sorry, Mate.” Her explanation of his state of mind was so like him that it made me even angrier. But not at him, and not at Megan.  
  
  
Two spiteful bitches planted their seeds of hate and pain that night, like a virus, eating away at Sandburg, destroying what made him special and leaving just the shell of a nameless cop behind. In only six months.  
  
  
I only hoped to God that it wouldn’t take another six months to fix.  
  
  
  



	5. You said what?

  
Author's notes: Jim gains the first confession... from Carolyn.  


* * *

It was an effort not to pound the telephone keypad.  
  
  
The call was easier to make than I thought, though. With a script before me, I steeled myself to deal with my ex. When her voice came on the line, I closed my eyes and willed myself to let my anger go. With Megan by my side, whispering Sentinel soft words of encouragement, I made my way through the obligatory chit-chat about my father, her family, our mutual friends, and wind toward the meat of the conversation.  
  
  
She seems genuinely happy to hear from me, reminding me of how good an actress she really is on top of everything else. And on she chatters.  
  
  
I remember as she talks, why she was in town. Her sister’s wedding. That fixes the timeline in my head perfectly as I recall the newspaper announcement. I make noncommittal noises and open-ended statements, giving her ample opportunity to hang herself. The obligatory question as to the well-being of my partner is left without an answer for a moment too long, and that’s when she makes her mistake.  
  
  
“I told him he’d get you killed. I’m not surprised he left.”  
  
  
I don’t bother to correct any of her assumptions as my grip on the phone tightens. And I don’t notice the grinding sound my teeth are making either, until Megan puts a hand on my arm. Carolyn continues blithely. “Knew he was a lousy partner for you, told him so. Told him you’d be better off without him.”  
  
  
And now I knew I had been right to be quit of her all those years ago. But I hadn’t really, had I. I had always tried to keep the connection open. Tried to remain friends. And what did that do? Left an opening for her to come and spew her hatred and filth at my partner and Guide. Well, if there was one thing I could do, it was to fix this one gap.  
  
  
“Carolyn,” I cut in as she takes a deep breath, before she can utter more of her claptrap. “Do me a favor, next time you’re in town? Don’t bother to look me up.”  
  
  
I don’t remember precisely what I did with the phone after I hung up on her.  
  
  



	6. Dealing with the Dog

  
Author's notes: Megan gets into a little trouble...  


* * *

You know, I’ve heard the term ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ but I never thought I would have occasion to see it firsthand. I mean, I knew that Sam could be vindictive, I’ve seen it. I had told Megan about it before she went to have a friendly chat.  
  
“Sort of a woman to woman bonding thing, you get me Mate?”  
  
Sure, I got it… but didn’t stop me from eaves dropping on them while they sat in the café across from the station and natter on about men and dating and Sandburg. Sam was all too happy to dish about the posturing of Cascade’s most eligible bachelor and his numerous exploits of the women of the city, and especially his dating practices.  
  
Most of it I would have agreed with, years ago when I first started working with him, I had likened him to a dog humping any available table leg he could find. It had sort of become a running joke with us. Sam didn’t seem to think it was so funny. And she had no problem with a little Blair-bashing when she had such an open audience in Megan. Megan, of course, played her cards very close to her vest, as it were. Until that one remark that left the both of us feeling very cold.  
  
“It’s like I said to him the last time, when that woman Carolyn left the loft. He was a horn dog with no idea what real commitment was. He had been a bastard then and he’s still a bastard today. I wouldn’t be surprised if he still lusted after Ellison, damned Fag.”  
  
Don’t ask me how I kept Megan from killing the venomous bitch. Sometimes it didn’t pay to underestimate the Aussie women.  
  
I think Sam should regain her sight by the time she’s moved down to Oregon. Shame about her hair, though.  



	7. Right where we need to be.

  
Author's notes: Confrontation time.  


* * *

Life has a way of kicking you in the teeth sometimes. After hearing the admissions from both Carolyn and Samantha, I felt like I had not only been kicked in the teeth, but the rest of my body as well. Six hours after Sam’s confession for her little part in the crime and I was feeling drained, in such pain for the suffering that my partner had endured. It was enough for me to want to pull up stakes, grab my Guide and do a cut ‘n run out of town, head south for warmer climes and sunny skies. But, I had a little problem there. I couldn’t just cut out with Sandburg. For one thing, he would have reminded me of my duties as a Sentinel.  
  
For another thing, up till now, he had no idea that I knew what was going on. And I still had to tell him.  
  
When he came home that night, with news about how Sam was leaving town and how Megan had been suspended for a week, (Yeah, Simon wasn’t too happy with the Aussie right now.) I played it off as interesting, made dinner, sat with him at the table and tried to act normal. But nothing was normal for us anymore, was it? He wasn’t acting like himself and I was supposed to not notice. My question, how are you, came out of the blue. His indigo eyes sparked as he quietly answered that he was fine. Right Chief, pull the other one, it plays the Macarena.  
  
And then he was angry, wanted to be left alone, he was doing his job so wasn’t that enough for me? Well, I’m sorry but no, it wasn’t enough for me. It was too damned much, as a matter of fact, he was spreading himself too thin and he wasn’t acting like himself anymore. How was he supposed to act? I don’t know, maybe like the partner I had before those two whores laid into him and spread his insecurities out for all to see.  
  
And I knew I should have kept my mouth shut right about then.  
  
I barely stopped him from going out the door, slamming it shut in front of him and grabbing his shoulder, twisting him back around to face me. I could feel his trembling as I pressed my advantage of height and weight against him, pinning him against the door. For a moment, I had to stop and catch my breath, feeling how good he was against me. He appeared not to be amused.  
  
“Back off man!” he yelled. I wasn’t about to let him get away. I told him so. He fussed and fumed. I challenged him. His response was to grab my head in his hands and kiss me. I guess he figured that I would be repulsed by the thought of my male partner pulling a stunt like that.  
  
Wonder what’s going through his mind right now as I kiss him senseless, my hands carding through his soft mahogany curls and my body settling against his as naturally as breathing?  
  



End file.
